A process of this kind has already been disclosed, for example, in German Patent Specification DE-A-30 38 351. This publication describes a process for the recovery of the material in a battery, in this case lead batteries for vehicles. The process involves removing the base of the battery container, and possibly also the top. The bases and the internal parts of the batteries, i.e. the electrode plates and the plates which secure the battery parts together, are removed by the effect of gravity. As it is difficult by means of this process to separate the internal parts of the battery, it has been proposed to cause the entire battery to vibrate in order to more certainly release the parts and make them fall out.
The process described in said German Patent Specification suffers from the disadvantage that its function is unreliable, even if vibration is applied, in addition to which the electrolyte runs out in an uncontrollable manner as the base of the battery container is removed. The process leaves both the positive and the negative sets of electrode plates in a single, unseparated unit, which also contains sludge and electrode deposits and residual electrolyte. This renders more difficult the subsequent handling involved in the recovery of the material making up the battery and results in contaminated scrap.
In the case of lead batteries, in which lead is the principal component of both the positive and the negative electrode plates, no actual separation of the sets of electrode plates is required as part of the process of recovering material making up the battery. Such separation of the sets of positive and negative plates is, however, essential in conjunction with the recovery of material making up alkaline batteries, for example those of the nickel-cadmium type, for which only manual methods, involving heavy and dirty operations, have been applicable until now.